Inflexible kids may have remarkable memory when it comes to remembering all the times their parents didnt follow through on a promise, and an equally remarkable inability to recall all the times their parents did follow through. This evokes a very different response from people around them. To avoid this from occurring, keep an eye on how students are communicating with one another. Behaviour that challenges in the classroom calls for a considered, consistent and whole-school approach. A large number of factors are considered to be responsible for the students classroom misbehavior. Our kids already want to do well, but some of them have hard time making it happen. Lack of respect. Some kids really have not yet made the connection between the name of an emotion and the emotion theyre feeling. Or not having enough free play. Challenging behaviour. If you fail to keep control of a class and enable the challenging behaviour from disruptive pupils to dictate, none of the other class members will be able to learn and you will be unable to teach in the way you were trained for. Inflexible kids may zero in on what therapists often call negative cognititions, or the little voices of self-doubt that we all feel, and may become immobilized while self-doubt washes over them. If you do respond and answer the questions, expect to have this information thrown back at you constantly, shouted across the playground and posted on social media. Some potential causes include: Our Challenging Behaviour training course has been produced by experts to provide you with the right knowledge and techniques to help manage the behaviour of the children you work with. Some kids dont know how to express their needs, while others have a really hard time assessing their needs in the first place. Outside work Jane enjoys playing music, learning foreign languages and swimming in the sea even when it is far too cold for comfort! That way if any student crosses the line, it not only goes against your rules, it goes against the ethos of the whole class and is less likely to be favourably received by classmates. Over 50 years of research into our neurobiology has confirmed that challenging behavior is a symptom of a deficit in one or more skill areas vital to our success. It can also make a major difference to their mental health.So, teacher-pupil relationships should be fostered to be as positive as they possibly can. The problem isnt that the kid is trying to ruin the lives of everyone around them, its that they have a genuinely hard time understanding when theyve crossed a line and moved from friendly jabs to jokes that are just a little too pointy. Imagine someone comes up to you in this country, and issues an instruction in a language you cant understand, then rapid-fires questions at you again in the language you dont understand, and then punishes you when you inevitably get frustrated, or when you just dont respond at all. If you just say, hand your work in on Monday, some children will endeavour to spin this out and get their homework to you by the end of the day (having frantically tried to complete it at break time). Keep them in the loop when their child has misbehaved, and ensure that they establish similar rules at home to the ones you have in school. Cognitive flexibility is also the ability to see in shades of grey. Prof Ford said: There is a really, really strong overlap between children with behaviour problems and children with reading problems about a third of the children who have a specific reading disorder will also have conduct disorder and vice-versa.In some cases, the behaviour may derive from a childs stage of development relative to their age, as Prof Ford explained: There are children who have a global developmental delay, so in other words, its not so much that their behaviour is wilfully bad, but its that they are in a situation, particularly in a school setting, where actually the expectations are just inappropriate for their developmental level.Emotional disorders can also lead to difficult behaviour and should be considered, particularly if the challenging behaviour is a change for that child.For example, Prof Ford explained, if I have a child who is really anxious about being separated from a parent, getting them into school can be really hard and that anxiety may manifest or be shown to others as temper tantrums and refusal to go to school. Challenging behaviour can take many forms and it is not always obviously aggressive. Lying falsifying statements to get one's way or to get others in trouble. Dealing with challenging behaviour in the classroom is one of the most difficult aspects of teaching and sadly the one that causes the most anxiety in teachers. Tell the child you are proud of them and give them some positive attention. Have you ever misplaced your phone more than once in the same day? In the eyes of the school, and sometimes the eyes of the family, it changes a child who is a problem into a child who has a problem.This evokes a very different response from people around them. I train a lot of people in a lot of different fields, and one of the secret training tricks that has been passed down from generation of trainer to generation of trainer, is that when you ask a question and are hoping for a response, sometimes youve got to stand your ground and just wait. Armed with this . The first and foremost step to keep in mind is the promotion of positive or pro-social behaviour. I think. Mental Health Awareness However, here are some of the major reasons why a child may engage in challenging behaviour at school. Cheating being academically dishonest or duplicitous in their dealings with others. Furthermore, when a child behaves in a typically negative way, identify their reasons for acting that way instead of just punishing them. right? Poor Freddie probably gets this first response at home so is highly unlikely to listen to you. Virtually every parenting manual, school discipline handbook, and residential behavior system is built on the idea that behavior is a matter of will, and that, if we want our kids to do better, we must engage in a grueling process of punishing children so that they learn to make better choices. They may throw tantrums and screaming fits, as well as destructive behaviour such as breaking equipment or spoiling other pupils work. reported challenging behaviour (e.g., calling out, out of seat) was inherently minor in nature for the most part, but at high frequency this could be extremely disruptive to the operation of a . Emotional disorders can also lead to difficult behaviour and should be considered, particularly if the challenging behaviour is a change for that child. From biting and hitting to throwing tantrums and refusing to cooperate, challenging behavior often disrupts and negatively affects a family's homelife and the classroom learning environment. The following list displays 28 of the most common causes of disruptive behavior in the classroom: 1. If its a sudden change, what has happened at home or at school that might explain that? Kids who hear voices can improve their skills. Social Thinking: the ability to read the room. At the start of a new school year, both you and your students should work together to establish a class code of conduct. For example, if they misbehaved because they wanted attention, establish a turn-taking system where they get plenty of opportunities to speak. For example, you can try to: Most children misbehave from time to time thats just a fact of childhood. Kids with serious cognitive disabilities can improve their skills. Likewise, a teenager who is depressed can be really irritable. I dont know about you, but that feels like a lot. The good news is that anyone, any kid, can improve their skills. She said: If a child gets a reputation for always behaving badly, you can get a give a dog a bad name phenomenon there may be other children who are behaving badly, but not quite so often, who just get away with it and the child with the reputation cant even breathe loudly without being pulled up all the time. High level disruptive behaviour cannot be ignored and must be dealt with immediately. Bad Classroom Behavior. Have a descrete discussion with the student after class to try and get to the root cause of the problem. Our kids already want to do well, but some of them have hard time making it happen. Email: hello@cpd.email Always praise for hard work, effort or a good piece of work. If you need to call someone out for bad behaviour, try not to make it worse. Kids who struggle with this skill often see in black and white: everything, or nothing. As a result, theyll likely feel annoyed at you and wont want to listen to what you say next. On the surface might look like hitting, screaming, running out of the classroom, ripping up materials or refusing to participate. This is a mistake. "ICK refers to the negativity or risk factors in an individual's life," explains Sperry in FLIP IT! Transforming Challenging Behavior. All courses, How to deal with challenging behaviour in the classroom. According to Rachel Wagner Sperry, MSW, with the Devereux Center for Resilient Children, the ICK in a child's life can cause challenging behavior. However, between those two groups you have a population of children who are vulnerable and its for these children that schools who are well-organised can make a real difference to educational outcomes and mental health. You cant fix all the problems that may be experienced by your pupils at home. Once you have got to know your class, a warning look or a gesture may be enough to make a troublemaker stop. Behaviour that challenges is not a diagnosis and is used in this guideline to indicate that such behaviour is a challenge to services, family members, carers and the person, but may be functional for the person with a learning disability. There can be numerous causes for challenging behaviour in the classroom, and with the policy of inclusivity in schools of special needs, and the chaotic issues that many children face on a daily basis at home, this is only increased. Children with autistic conditions can struggle with changes in activity, and children with ADHD struggle with sitting still and sustaining concentration. As educators, you know there are just some kids who walk into a classroom and they're not going to follow the norms of the classroom. In a classroom environment, one of the biggest obstacles you may face is dealing with children with challenging behaviour. Try recording yourself to see how you come across to the children in your charge. In doing this, youre getting students involved in a stimulating activity rather than directly telling them what to do, which will have better results. What are the advantages of having a diagnosis for children? And some kids can knock even this sequence out of the park! Other kids just dont know how to express their emotion (or need, or concern) in a way that makes sense. PreK-12 educators will: Discover the root causes of challenging behavior Learn how to implement student choices in the classroom Explore self-monitoring as a way to improve social behavior and academic success Examine precorrection as a way to be proactive in the classroom when it comes to challenging behaviors Business Design/methodology/approach - This paper is the second in a twopart series. This can be done through a variety of means through assemblies, for instance, through a consistent approach to bullying, and by having ground rules on how staff interact with each other and with students.Simple, traditional techniques for managing behaviour can be really effective for example, having a daily report card that children take round the school with them and then take home, so its not so much whats written on the card that counts, its the fact that the child is aware that everyones speaking to each other and that it opens up channels of communication.Teacher-pupil relationships: a vital linkProf Ford is firmly of the opinion that we should not underestimate the importance of teacher-pupil relationships when it comes to challenging behaviour.She explains her thinking: From the British National Survey Data of school-aged children we have demonstrated that teacher-pupil relationships, if poor, predict the new onset of behaviour problems and other psychiatric issues and they also predict exclusions.While this may be a difficult thing for educators to hear, it demonstrates that what teachers and teaching assistants do is really important. Some kids have trouble remembering the sequence of events, while others might remember, but have a really hard time doing things in the right order! The ability to know when the girl you like is flirting with you, when your jokes arent landing, or when youre talking wayyyyy to close to someone else. Lets say I give you a sequence of numbers: 2, 4, 6, and 8. Challenging the teacher on certain concepts. Prof Ford believes that having clear, realistic targets for achievement is key when teaching children whose behaviour challenges, as is making a point of giving praise for a job well done. Whilst you may not necessarily be able to control its causes, you should be aware of some strategies you can use for managing challenging behaviour in the classroom. The same is true for our kids. For example, teachers may need to show students visually what they must do and use simple instructions. She gave me her insights into the origins of challenging behaviour and discussed effective strategies for offering support.Challenging behaviour and mental healthOpinion is divided on whether or not challenging behaviour constitutes a mental health problem.Prof Ford explained: Thats a really interesting question and we could talk for an hour about the philosophy of whether or not behaviour that challenges others should be conceptualised as a psychiatric problem.What we can say, however, is that children who meet the diagnostic criteria for conduct disorder have a much higher risk of every adult mental health problem. Sometimes 45 seconds. Diculty organising themselves and their equipment. These are the skills that the world around us demands we demonstrate all day, every day. Challenging behaviour can take many forms but essentially comes down to whether it causes low level disruption or high-level disruption. Kids who are non-verbal can improve their skills. The underlying anxiety might be missed. Eventually someone will offer an answer, even a desperately unsure one, just to make the silence stop. I think careful assessment is always important. The ability to understand how your presence impacts other people. Sometimes 30 seconds. I think its about having a really good whole-school approach to behaviour management which is consistent.Similar messages need to be put out to the entire school. In terms of managing behaviour, spending time developing a good relationship is like putting money in the bank: when you then have to say, no, actually that behaviour is unacceptable because and impose a sanction, the child is likely to be more receptive if a positive connection has already been established.Prof Ford acknowledges that managing childrens behaviour is one of the toughest things about the job: Having to deal with behaviour problems and not feeling supported is quite often what causes people to leave teaching. There are two broad kinds of classroom disruption, low-level disruption and high-level disruption. Stop me if youve heard a variation on any of these": everyone hates me, you always say that, you dont love me, you just want me to suffer, etc. In doing so, other children are more likely to behave positively to get a similar reaction. This includes anxiety, depression and psychosis as well as difficulties that might be less surprising, like substance misuse and dependence.To meet the diagnostic criteria for conduct disorder children must, explained Prof Ford, have three or four severe problems which persist for at least six months and make it difficult for them to access education and maintain friendships, get in the way of family life and distress people around them.Whatever the philosophical debate, she emphasised that it is important to have this categorisation so that we can identify and support children who experience these difficulties.Having a category through which we can say these children are in difficulty, she continued, seems to me very important.If we can get in to find out why their behaviour is happening, to support them and change their behaviour traits, we may have a positive impact not only on their health trajectory, but also on their educational outcomes, their future employment, their intimate relationships, and perhaps their own childrens mental health further down the line.Underlying causesIdentifying these children is often fairly straightforward young people whose behaviour challenges tend to declare themselves because someone is struggling to cope with them, be it their parents or carers, or their teachers at school.Prof Ford stated that the more important issue is to understand the origins of their behaviour. Challenging behaviour in the classroom can take many forms and although the physical threat increases when you are teaching older children and teenagers, even primary school age children can be hard to manage. Always endeavour to remain calm and polite with your students. Involving students in this is important, as it gives them a sense of ownership and in turn a greater commitment to following the code of conduct themselves. For example, telling someone to stop talking is more likely to be remembered if the instruction is delivered in a positive way. This can be done through a variety of means through assemblies, for instance, through a consistent approach to bullying, and by having ground rules on how staff interact with each other and with students. Type this up and display it in the classroom so students can always see it. For example, we react much better to statements like Thomas, please talk quietly than Stop shouting Thomas. Framing your instruction positively, as opposed to negatively, will have much better results. Most of us can do it fairly quickly, but even the best of us often find ourselves needing time to process a question or an idea before providing a coherent response.